{"id":11516,"date":"2016-08-10T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=11516"},"modified":"2016-08-10T06:50:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T06:50:07","slug":"wendy-sterns-kshanti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wendy-sterns-kshanti\/","title":{"rendered":"Wendy Stern’s ‘Kshanti’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>#TheWritingLife is a hash tag sometimes used by writers on social media to vent their frustrations with lines of poetry, chapter openings and recalcitrant characters that refuse to fit in. But what about when that writing life means each and every line you compose requires someone else to take down dictation and read back your work, and that the same painstaking process must be repeated during every re-edit?<\/p>\n

Wendy Stern who died in 2015 had ME or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, sometimes known as Chronic Fatigue or Post-Viral syndrome, where sufferers experience severe, persistent fatigue and chronic pain. Wendy’s death was not a direct result of her ME but was in the context of it and during the last years of her life when she was bedridden, she turned to poetry as ‘a way of giving expression to her thoughts and feelings’. Her poetry was heavily influence by the Buddhism she followed and the title of her collection is Kshanti<\/em> which means patient endurance.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Sowah* who reviews the collection for us below calls it ‘translucent’<\/p>\n

The first time I opened this book I could not stop reading until I had read every poem. Awareness of the poet\u2019s suffering and death made her simple hypnotic style all the more poignant.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

A second reading made me look beneath the surface. Below the physical pain I sensed two conflicting emotions: hope that she might achieve wisdom and peace in this life: \u2018 … slowly, slowly\/ You come to guide me,\u2019 and desolation, in \u2018To all that is left\u2019 she asks, \u2018Can it really make up \/For all the life unlived?\u2019 Both hope and desolation are tinged with suffering. When guidance comes, \u2018always it hurts.\u2019 The litany of aspects of \u2018the life unlived\u2019 is very powerful as it makes us aware of the simple joys which made Wendy\u2019s life worthwhile and her tragic sense of loss as she faces the prospect that she must \u2018leave it all behind.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Of Wendy’s poem\u00a0 \u2018Target\u2019, Jennifer notes It is one of the strangest qualities of Wendy\u2019s poetry that although the poem concludes wondering if she is \u2018Just a particularly …\/ Easy target?\u2019 there is a greater sense of resignation than of bitterness.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Target<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is your aim particularly good
\nAs you shoot your arrows into the wild night storm
\nSo that they end up landing time and again,
\nPerfectly placed at my front door?<\/p>\n

Or is it that the wind swirls and swoops
\nAnd reroutes them through that blackened void
\nSo that they end up landing,
\nPerfectly positioned, perfectly poised, at my front door?<\/p>\n

Or is it that I, naked of flesh,
\nNaked of bone,
\nNaked alone,
\nAm just a particularly,
\nJust a particularly,
\nJust a particularly…<\/p>\n

Easy target?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kshanti<\/em> is published by Poetry Space and available here<\/a>. You can find out more information about Myalgic Encephalomyelitis at www.actionforme.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Jenny Sowah was a teacher of English until her retirement.\u00a0 She has spent part of her life in Africa and is well versed in the literature of many cultures.\u00a0 She now lives with her family in Bristol.<\/small><\/small><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

#TheWritingLife is a hash tag sometimes used by writers on social media to vent their frustrations with lines of poetry, chapter openings and recalcitrant characters that refuse to fit in. But what about when that writing life means each and every line you compose requires someone else to take down dictation and read back your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11516"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11893,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516\/revisions\/11893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}